Cherry Blossom Grown from Space Seeds a Bit Weird

Cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Tokyo, Japan, but after their space journey as seeds, some of the cherry trees are strangely different.

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CapitolCherryTreestoPeakApr.8-12:Photos

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This year, the more than 3,000 flowering cherry trees in Washington, D.C., will turn spring into a pink-and-white bipartisan town between April 8 and 12, the National Park Service said today.
The Yoshino Cherry trees, a gift from the city of Tokyo in 1912, line the Tidal Basin of the Potomac River. In this photo they're blossoming around the Jefferson Memorial. The average peak blossom date is April 4, but they have bloomed as early as March 15 in 1990 and as late as April 18 in 1958.

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Japan originally sent 2,000 trees in 1910, but they were diseased and had to be burned.
In 1912, Japan sent a second batch of trees, which became the "first trees."
Plaques mark the two original trees believed to be those planted by First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, the wife of the Japanese ambassador, in a small ceremony on March 27, 1912. Only one hundred of the first trees still remain among today's population of around 3,770 trees.

Ron Blunt Photography

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One of the cherry trees' strongest advocates was Eliza Ruhama Scidmore, a world traveler, writer and editor and the first female board member of the National Geographic Society.
After her first visit to Japan in 1885, she tried for 24 years to convince the powers that be to plant cherry trees along the Potomac waterfront. Finally, she decided in 1909 to raise funds to buy the trees and donate them to the city.
Imagine her delight when, after writing to the First Lady to tell her of her plan, she received a reply just two days later from Mrs. Taft saying, "I have taken the matter up and am promised the trees."

National Park Service

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The plan quickly gained steam when wealthy Japanese chemist Jokichi Takamine, who discovered adrenaline, among other things, and the Japanese consul in New York proposed a donation of 2,000 trees from the city of Tokyo, paid for by Takamine.
After the first batch arrived diseased and had to be burned, Tokyo's Mayor Yukio Ozaki, pictured here with his daughters walking along the Tidal Basin, and Takamine followed through with a second donation of 3,020 replacement trees, again funded by Takamine. These trees came from cuttings from a renowned stand of trees lining the Arakawa River, a Tokyo suburb.

Museum Resource Center, National Park Service

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In 1938, a group of women threatened to chain themselves to a group of cherry trees to prevent them from being chopped down to build the new Jefferson Memorial. In a compromise, more trees were planted along the water to frame the memorial.

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In 1952, the United States donated cuttings from the trees back to the parent grove of trees in Arakawa River, which suffered during World War II, a practice which continued at other times to provide tree stock to Japanese communities and horticulturalists.
In 1965, the Japanese government gave 3,800 additional trees to First Lady Lady Bird Johnson.

United States Department of Agriculture

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Today, two species of cherry tree dominate the Capitol, though there are specimens of 13 types in total. There are about 2,763 Yoshino cherry trees ( Prunus x yedoensis ), which grow around the Tidal Basin and the Washington Monument. They display a cluster of white blossoms and bloom about two weeks before the other variety, the Kwanzan cherry ( Prunus x serrulata ).

A cosmic mystery is uniting monks and scientists in Japan after a cherry tree grown from a seed that orbited the Earth for eight months bloomed years earlier than expected -- and with very surprising flowers.

The four-year-old sapling -- grown from a cherry stone that spent time aboard the International Space Station (ISS) -- burst into blossom on April 1, possibly a full six years ahead of Mother Nature's normal schedule.

Its early blooming baffled Buddhist brothers at the ancient temple in central Japan where the tree is growing.

"We are amazed to see how fast it has grown," Masahiro Kajita, chief priest at the Ganjoji temple in Gifu, told AFP by telephone.

"A stone from the original tree had never sprouted before. We are very happy because it will succeed the old tree, which is said to be 1,250 years old."

The wonder pip was among 265 harvested from the celebrated "Chujo-hime-seigan-zakura" tree, selected as part of a project to gather seeds from different kinds of cherry trees at 14 locations across Japan.

The stones were sent to the ISS in November 2008 and came back to Earth in July the following year with Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, after circling the globe 4,100 times.

Some were sent for laboratory tests, but most were ferried back to their places of origin, and a selection were planted at nurseries near the Ganjoji temple.

By April this year, the "space cherry tree" had grown to around four meters (13 feet) tall, and suddenly produced nine flowers -- each with just five petals, compared with about 30 on flowers of the parent tree.